Thursday, October 30, 2008

Studying for a report..

Mini-Me is studying to find information for her first ever report.
The curriculum only gave her a photo-copied encyclopedia page. Granted, it's all about teaching her the basics of research and information gathering. I don't have a problem with that.

She has a problem with it.
She doesn't have enough information to use her own words to write the report.
She keeps asking me, "Mom, what about plagiarism?"

The curriculum mentioned it, not I.
She learned about it on Arthur, not from me.
I sighed.

I explained that I wasn't really concerned about it because of the information given to her with the curriculum. I told her that she'd be adding words and thoughts as she wrote the final report to go from one point to another.

But as we talked - she wanted to know more about her subject. More than just a photocopied encyclopedia page can tell her.

The subject is George Washington Carver. He is one of my favorite people to read about. There's a Mott Media book about him, that I thought I owned, but I don't (but will). I wanted her to hear about the scientist that had a relationship with the God who created the peanut and sweet potato.

I had to trust the library to give me something.

I searched via the internet and found a couple. One is written kind of in prose for easy reading. One is a graphic novel kind of thing. Our librarian with a really cool name, showed me three more in our local library (usually our little city library doesn't have much of what I want.)

She's enjoying the books and I'm thrilled. Quite by accident, we discovered a treasure.

"Mom!! Listen this: 'Moses and Mary Carver taught George and his brother Jim to read and write at home.'" (I'm paraphrasing.)

She beamed at me. "He was home-schooled, just like me."

I restrained from happy dancing. It was hard.
One thing about it, she'll never look at a peanut the same again.
And I'm quite okay with that.
Excuse me while I happy dance.

12 comments:

Growin' With It said...

smart sweetie you have there and i love it that she's a rule follower. great job mom!

Kelli said...

Awwwww!!! She is just too darn cute!!

Anonymous said...

Hey there-enjoyed catching up with you. This was a neat post-I love pointing out to the kids famous people who were homeschooled. Holly (applesofgold)

Halfmoon Girl said...

Are you still dancing? Cool connection for her to make!

jugglingpaynes said...

What a great moment for both of you!

Peace and Laughter!

Vicki said...

So I must ask. Just how old is Mini me? Just wait till she grasps the complete use of research.... I'm smiling as my youngest is a research fiend (as long as it's on a topic he's interested in, lol.)

Thank you for the sweet compliment about my Caylee. When she was born, I didn't think it was possible to love someone more then I loved her. Now as the mother of a young adult (she's 18!) I can tell you that love truly does grow.

Aren't we lucky that the Lord blessed us with children?

40winkzzz said...

We learned about GW Carver recently, too. So is Mini-Me studying Thomas Edison anytime soon? Wait til she finds out that he was homeschooled, too!

40winkzzz said...

RYC--
Harry Chapin is the singer I remember. I think. Now I'm confused. I don't remember hearing a Cat Stevens version, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. I'm falling asleep again so I'm not going to look it up or who knows what might happen. Good thought, anyway.

CrossView said...

I LOVE those moments! And we're huge G.W. Carver fans here! He was such an amazing man.... =D

The Gang's Momma! said...

I might actually pay good money to see you happy dancing :) We're not doing a ton of happy dancing this weekend here, as you can imagine. The cast is heavy and LadyBug's shoulder and neck are already aching. Happy dance in my stead, will you?!

Peculiar Blogs said...

you know, I dno't know if I know anything about George Washington Carver!

Dapoppins said...

There is so much in histry where God gets the glory, but I didn't learn THAT in school. I had no idea that Issac Newton was a dedicated, sincere Christian until we home schooled and I looked up stuff on my own for the kids...